


Monster Mash

by Highsmith (quimtessence)



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Flirting, Billy Hargrove Is an Asshole, Bisexual Billy Hargrove, Bisexuality, Character Study, Episode: s02e02 Trick or Treat Freak, F/M, Fandom5K 2019, Flirting, Foursome - F/M/M/M, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Inspired by an Episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, M/M, Multi, Non-Consensual Drug Use, POV Billy Hargrove, Polyamory, Pre-Foursome, Supernatural Elements, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-04-06 06:02:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19056673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quimtessence/pseuds/Highsmith
Summary: The punch is spiked with more than just cheap vodka.Halloween in Hicktown just got a hell of a lot weirder.(Inspired by the Season 2, Episode 6 ofBuffy the Vampire Slayer, "Halloween". Set during "Chapter Two: Trick or Treat, Freak".)





	Monster Mash

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Etnoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/gifts).



> @ Etnoe: I had _so many ideas_ about where I could take the story, but they were either under 5K or _way_ over 5K. I took the premise from BtVS and worked it into the existing canon in a bit of a hand-wavey way. I hope this works for you and isn't too much of a stretch. XOXO
> 
> ETA July 23rd 2019: I'm on [tumblr](https://rhubarbdreams.tumblr.com) again.

When you up and move to a one-cow town it figures they expect you to dress up before they let you hit the keg.

Even though these people obviously have to get their kicks however they can, Billy's trying to make nice. Maybe get near the good stuff by the end of the night.

Which is why he ends up, on a Wednesday evening in fucking Indiana, rolling the Camaro to a gravelly stop outside some sophomore chick's parents' house in a shitty skeleton person get-up Johnny Lawrence would be proud to own.

The beer better be worth it.

*

It's not.

*

Tommy "H is for gives you Hell, asshole" H and Carol whatever-the-fuck take him under their wing or some such bullshit.

Carol's deal is all about giving him fuck-me eyes, which Billy doesn't exactly encourage as much as lets happen out of social necessity. He has no intention of _going there_ , but addressing the come-hither glances ain't gonna happen as long as it gets him invited places he can drink for free in this hick town.

It'd be almost worth it, all the free booze, to stand for Tommy's constant yapping about someone called, apparently, "King Steve". Carol's no slouch either, bitching about some Nancy chick who's "as loose as they come," which is its own special brand of irony. Or maybe hypocrisy, depending on how you see things, and Billy sees them pretty darn clear, all told.

One thing leads to another, and by eight o'clock he's doing a keg-stand and beating some other asshole's record to the sound of half the party chanting his name like he's a fucking beast.

Getting dragged inside the house right afterwards almost has him puking that morning's corn flakes all over the fancy rugs, but Tommy's the sort of asshole who gets his kicks however he can, so Billy grins and bears it and smiles all mean at anyone glancing his way until he's stepping over the goddamn furniture on a beeline for the prettiest goddamn things he's seen since he landed in Bumfuck, Indiana. Like, fuck off this dude's pretty, and his girl ain't half bad either.

Tommy must be spewing something obnoxious next to him, but Billy ain't exactly listening.

King Steve has big brown eyes once the Tom Cruise sunglasses are off. It's a little distracting.

"Who are _you_ supposed to be?" Billy asks his little girlfriend. It's obvious she was about to step off before his question caught her off guard.

If the raised eyebrow and up and down look weren't making it glaringly clear already, her little sneer is more than enough to tell she's far from impressed. Billy likes a challenge if and only if he has a chance in the end. That's less obvious at the moment.

"Madonna," she mutters.

"Come off it, Wheeler," Tommy sneers. "Maybe the bargain bin version," he adds.

"Shut it, Tommy," King Steve says. His face scrunches up adorably when he's pissed.

"You shut it, Harrington," Tommy barks. Gets a little in his face. Billy's not here to _stop_ fights, so he's giving it half a thought it doesn't get there, not just yet.

From somewhere behind him there's enough of a commotion it has folks muttering over the music. He turns to see some kid with floppy hair in a Ghostbusters costume, proton pack included, standing in the middle of the living room.

"Jonathan?" the Wheeler girl asks.

"Huh," Harrington says. Billy glances his way in time to catch a look that's half impressed and half something else entirely.

It's the sort of look he's seen in his own mirror, the context notwithstanding. The sort of look he's tried not to be obvious about throwing other boys.

He walks off to get himself some punch.

*

It could be a little after nine or closer to midnight when it happens, Billy's not entirely sure. Time starts running around in all directions about the time he chugs his second cup of red punch. The taste of cheap vodka is lingering unpleasantly to the roof of his mouth and to the backs of his teeth, and his vision might be clear, _still_ , but something weird is definitely happening to him here, and he doesn't much like it.

He ends up leaning against the back fence with a splitting headache as he watches more and more people coming outside. The fresh air ain't helping much, that's for sure, but the furnace of the party happening inside is much worse.

He watches Harrington stumbling outside followed by Wheeler and that little weirdo from before whose name had turned out to be Byers, proton pack now discarded. Funny thing is, even though he's seen all three of them chugging right alongside him from their own punch-filled red plastic cups, there's very little about the way they look that screams drunk. He's seldom seen anyone less likely to hold their drink than Wheeler or Byers, so.

Yeah, definitely something fucking weird here. Gives him the heebie jeebies like nothing else.

Which is kind of the thought he's left with when it hits him.

*

Someone yells something Billy can't make out. He can't make it out because his bones feel as if they're being pulled out through his skin and tissues to the outside of him, but also like he's _all_ bones all of a sudden.

Somewhere in a dark corner of his head his mind is screaming about how he's a real skeleton now. More people are yelling things all around him. Makes it difficult to think straight.

Billy doesn't so much pass out as stumble awkwardly into unconsciousness.

*

Someone is standing right above him.

"Are you OK, friend?" they ask.

If someone is standing _above_ him, then that means he's somewhere on the ground presumably. His bones sure feel like it.

He might mumble something incomprehensible, or he might yell something out, Billy's not entirely sure what his mouth and vocal chords are doing.

That someone says, "He doesn't look good, guys." A little distant, like maybe they're speaking over their shoulder to someone else. Multiple someones.

Somehow, Billy manages to open his eyes. He hadn't realised he'd had them closed all along until he'd figured out he probably should be able to identify the person talking to him.

He was right; he was on the ground. Is on the ground still. And the person speaking is the Byers kid, only his eyes are harder and he's staring worriedly at Billy. Probably because he's on the ground. Fuck, but his head hurts.

Then Harrington and his girl are hurrying over, and between the three of them they manage to lift him to his feet and have him leaning against the back fence once more. There are still people milling around, but the mood is all wrong, not like a party at all, unless they do parties wrong out here in the middle of nowhere; Billy wouldn't be _surprised_ , but somehow he doesn't _really_ believe it.

Fuckity fuck, his head is killing him something awful. It's hard to think things through like this. Gravity isn't doing him any favours either.

Unfortunately, they don't seem to want him stationary. Once more, between the three of them they manage to have him walking along, more like stumbling than anything else, back into the house and what's left of what used to be a good rager hours ago.

Has it been hours? Probably. Feels like it.

Moving's definitely fucking him up, but his feet want to be moving, it seems. A distant thought is screaming at him that running as fast as they can carry him along would be safer.

His feet make a valiant effort, but he's not kidding himself. The only reason he's moving at all is because he has three people helping him along. That's fucked up.

The living room is no longer packed, but there are enough people lingering to make it a decent party, maybe a little on the lame side. Then they're out the front door, stumbling up the street, farther and farther away from the music until Billy finds himself being pushed into the backseat of a BMW, door slammed behind him.

He blinks a couple of times. Harrington gets in the back from the other side, Wheeler's in the driver's seat and Byers glances back just as worriedly as before from the passenger's side. The motor ain't running, Billy notices.

"Are you gonna turn that on?" he asks nonsensically. He means to ask this at Wheeler, but he's having trouble focusing properly, and it ends with him talking to his own knees instead.

He can't still be drunk, right? He shuffles to his right. Shuffles a little more. His shoulder bumps against Harrington's awkwardly, and Billy looks up into very brown eyes.

Harrington says, "Are you good now?"

Answering a question with a question is rude as fuck. Billy would tell him that, but the parts of him that control speech go with, "Not as good as you, pretty boy."

Those brown eyes get real wide real quick. Billy wants to lick them. Or something. His head is all muddled.

"You got the worst of it," Wheeler tells him then. Billy doesn't know what that means, which probably shows on his face, or what she can see of it from where she's sitting. "You're dressed as a skeleton." Like that statement makes sense all on its own.

Billy's not about to parse out any of that when he's breathing the same air as someone so goddamn pretty.

Harrington's eyes flit between Billy's own, and he licks his lips absently before saying, "I know this will sound nuts, but we got turned into our costumes. Most of us were, anyway. For the most part. Like, not all the way through." He stops then and stares. Like Billy's supposed to have a goddamn reaction.

They sit with him in the car for several minutes during which Harrington looks like he's trying his best to decipher the meaning of the universe in the car roof's upholstery he's staring at it so hard. Billy has trouble holding his heavy head up after the first few seconds of silence, so he leans it against the headrest, which gives him a solid view of Wheeler and Byers exchanging concerned looks in the front.

If he closes his eyes tight Billy thinks he might be able to fall asleep. Anything to make his head hurt less.

"Don't!" Byers says.

Billy blinks at him, about to snap back with something nasty, when Wheeler says, "He's right. We don't know you're not concussed or something. You were passed out when we found you."

That... makes sense. Sort of.

Only he doesn't feel concussed. What does concussed feel like anyway? Would he even know it if he was?

"Hospital?" he mumbles. It comes out as a question, which was his intention. That's something.

"Too many questions." Harrington's the one who answers him. He's looking at Billy again.

For some reason, that's when Billy notices there's an unnatural shine to Harrington's hair that wasn't there hours before. It's not a detail he would notice under regular circumstances, but the night is shaping up to be the very opposite of that anyway, so Billy might as well fully join in the weirdness.

Normally people tend to look shabbier after an evening of partying, unless Harrington's magic all of a sudden. His clothes seem to be the same, only Billy's pretty sure they look shinier, too. He couldn't have gone to change into a slightly better version of them in the middle of a party, though. There's no part of that that makes sense.

In the front seat, Byers's costume looks disturbingly genuine. Wheeler's is less bargain bin and more something straight out of a music video. Billy's eye sockets are hurting him and his jaw is quickly heading for the floor.

It's the heebie jeebies all over again.

The urge to puke is sudden and, ultimately, unavoidable.

Harrington must've been keeping his eyes peeled or something because, while Billy had reached for the door handle on impulse alone, he couldn't have been sure to aim worth a shit all on his own. Which is how he ends up with King Steve holding his head while he spews chunks in the streets of Hawkins, half hanging out of a fancy BMW.

*

His head hurts him less after all that. The apple juice Byers gets him helps, too. Billy might go to his grave never knowing where it comes from.

Apple juice? Really? He says as much, although it comes out gruff and barely above a whisper.

"Apple juice. Really," Wheeler says. Deadpan. Defensive. For a second there, Billy has to reevaluate who's dating who in this car.

Harrington isn't holding his head anymore because Billy's done puking his own guts, but they're close together on the backseat, Harrington basically watching him like a hawk. It doesn't take a genius to figure out it's his car and that he'd be mighty upset if Billy ruined any part of it, but it's a little too much with how close he's sitting, breathing softly in Billy's ear, thigh sort of touching Billy's knee.

His head must be clearing up some. It hurts him less, for one thing, and for another, he's starting to figure out he stumbled into something strange here.

Indiana isn't California, not by a long shot. Billy's no coward about speaking his mind, or anything really, but he's not all there right now. Self-preservation ain't his best trait, but he's got enough of it to know when to feel out the situation.

"It's sweet you're sticking up for your boyfriend, Wheeler." Matter-of-fact. Billy can barely hear the snark in his own voice, and, look and behold, it has the desired effect.

Wheeler huffs and scoffs straight away. Harrington is looking a little pale, though determined.

It's Byers who mutters, "What do you mean?" Shy. But also like teeth are hiding at the edges of the lips he's worrying.

"Just pointing it out, is all," Billy replies. That's not even the half of it.

"Look," Harrington starts. "There's no reason for you to be a dick. It's fine if you don't believe us, but lay off." He's a little huffy, too.

"It's Billy, right?" Wheeler suddenly asks him.

He'd scoff if he didn't think he'd choke on it.

Billy obviously doesn't answer her. His facial expression finally does what it wants it to, that sneer that's gotten him into trouble more than once. It hurts the muscles in his cheeks, but that's just the way it is.

She leans over her seat and sort of gets in his face then. With Harrington to his right and the car door seemingly like the gates of a fortress right now, he's well and good cornered.

"What?" he snaps.

"You're a bit of a bully," Byers speaks up. His pale face hovers over Wheeler's shoulder.

"It's none of your business what I am," he barks.

Harrington sighs heavily on his right. "We're only trying to help, man."

Too bad his head is still killing him.

Not as bad as before. It tends to go away and come back again in waves. His bones ache like growing pains. His molars sting the worst in his mouth. Might be why he's not lashing out more. Or he really is concussed. Fuck this piece of shit town.

They're in a standoff Billy wants no part of.

*

They drive him home.

The house on Cherry is quiet and dark. Billy hates it once again on sight. The hate comes and goes, sometimes staying for big bouts of time while he stews in his own misery. He firmly believes there's never going to be any time in his life, for as long as he's gonna live, when he won't feel this raging hate for it.

"I'll bring your Camaro to school before the first bell. Give me your keys," Byers states. Asks. He's replaced Harrington next to Billy and Wheeler's in the passenger's seat.

"Not gonna happen." Plain and simple. Surprisingly enough, his head stopped hurting once they were out onto the road. He appreciates a smooth ride, and the BMW is one smooth ride.

He wishes he could say he's fine now, but the weirdness is biting at his heels even though he's laying in the backseat. Would he be swinging otherwise? Most likely.

Harrington groans loudly. "Jesus, but you're a dick."

Billy licks the backs of his own teeth. "Keep that up, princess, and you're gonna get it." And if that comes out flirtier than any of them expected, Billy's not gonna apologise. Ain't even gonna watch for their reactions, although he can hear at least one of them taking a sudden breath in.

"Am I free to go now?" he asks no one in particular.

*

Apparently, they want to sneak him into his own house. Because he can't exactly do the sneaking on his own.

He can stand just fine, even move around on his own, but more than a couple of seconds of that gets him all lightheaded and prone to nose-diving into the nearest wall.

"You're seriously going to make this hard for us on purpose?" Harrington snaps after the first few minutes of their Sneak Billy into His Own House plan.

They're all half-whispering. There's a chance Neil and Susan aren't home, although the odds of that aren't great as there's no conceivable reason why they shouldn't be home on a fucking Wednesday night. Max's skateboard is resting against the front of the house, but Billy can't for the life of him remember if she took it along trick-or-treating. 

"It's been hard for a while, princess." He wags his tongue around for good measure.

In the half-darkness he catches sight of Wheeler's disgusted look. He expects her to call him out on it, but it's Byers who says "Can you not?"

They're behind his house, sort of tiptoeing to the part of the building the window which should be his is.

"Am I offending your delicate sensibilities?" he snarks. No one has anything to say to that. Mostly because that's when they realise his bedroom isn't on the ground floor.

Their communal groan would be oddly satisfying if it weren't for Billy's shoulders sliding down from where Harrington and Byers were supporting him just a moment before.

Turns out, the ground is softer than it looks. Huh.

*

So. He doesn't pass out from hitting the ground hard. And, to be fair, all three of them look pretty fucking guilty about it. It's hilarious. It doesn't dissuade them from sneaking him into his own house, however, which is less hilarious and more kind of fucking annoying by now. Billy prefers to be the originator of his fuck-ups rather than getting himself caught in somebody else's, thanks.

It's Byers who gets the ladder while Harrington and Wheeler help him lean against the back wall of the house.

"Two boyfriends, sweetheart? Tsk, tsk, tsk." It's disappointing to note he doesn't sound as obnoxious as he'd intended to. It must be well past midnight by now.

It's a decided blow to notice Wheeler doesn't even look all that annoyed. Kind of at all.

"Nothing to say for yourself?" he needles.

"Cut it out already, asshole!" Harrington's voice echoes a little too sharply and loudly in the quiet of the night.

"Shh," Wheeler chastises him. He looks guilty about it. Which is at about the right level of whipped as Billy would have anticipated had he spared more than a minute to consider what these two would be like together.

Steve Harrington is pretty, that's a given. Objectively. Billy's not much for lying to himself, especially when it comes to boys as pretty as this.

What's also becoming pretty darn obvious is how the guy's a little dim. Not the brightest light bulb. Billy can't be bothered to put up with dumb fucks for long, even the pretty ones, but it's vaguely endearing on Harrington. Wheeler seems to like him well enough.

She's a small thing, which usually isn't Billy's type at all. Girls aren't really Billy's type at all to begin with. Unless they're spitfires. Then all bets are off.

If he had to choose, it's be cock nine times out of ten, that's a given. But pussy's just as nice when the girl's a stallion. And Wheeler seems like she just might be.

Byers is hurrying with the ladder, or at least not dragging his feet. Billy can't say he has an exact type when it comes to guys. Byers is on the small side, too, which, again, not really Billy's thing, but he's got a nice mouth on him. Where Harrington's a bit dumb, Byers seems to have more going on in the attic, almost as much as Wheeler.

He doesn't know what's happening with these three. He likes to spit out dirty shit, but the shit between them is one fucking mystery.

It looks easy for all that.

It had looked easy when Harrington had touched Wheeler's arm as she'd been hanging out of the driver's seat to motion for her to switch with Byers and leave the wheel empty for him to drive Billy home.

It had looked easy when Byers had gripped Harrington's shoulder to say something to him all quiet and soft just before getting in the back with Billy. 

It had looked easy when Wheeler had smiled at Byers and directed him to get the ladder while she took over helping to hold Billy up against the house.

It's a fucking mystery.

Boys and girls, and boys and boys, they never touch each other, not like that, not where people like Billy Hargrove can see.

It's a fucking mystery. Or maybe it's fucking obvious, and Billy's just a moron.

*

They actually get him up the ladder and into his bedroom without waking up the entire neighbourhood. What the fuck. What the actual fuck.

Byers stubs his toe on the edge of the windowsill, and Harrington almost loses his hold on Billy on the very last rung of the ladder, and Wheeler clearly wasn't made to hold a ladder steady under the weight of three guys where one can barely hold himself upright without passing out. But they make it somehow, and Neil never need know.

Like, what the fuck.

They dump him onto his mattress the first chance they get, gravity doing most of the work for them, and then flop down besides him while taking deep, heavy breaths.

Can you get motion sickness on dry land? Because Billy's belly is in his throat and his internal organs are all crawling around in the worst way. He'd be happy to pass out where he landed, but the very idea of explaining to anyone in his household why he fell asleep wearing a skeleton costume makes him want to punch a wall.

There's also the matter of the three other people currently occupying his bed other than himself in complete darkness.

To be fair, they can't turn on the lights. But it's off-putting to listen to three pairs of lungs dragging air in and out and in and out.

He's probably concussed and hallucinating it all. Probably.

Might also explain why he's starting to remember what happened earlier and how it makes no fucking sense whatsoever.

*

It's not as if he'd forgotten as such, but some things aren't meant for a human brain to remember or experience. Whatever sort of place he's landed in, something is definitely going on. Hawkins, Indiana, is not just a hick town reeking of cow shit, that's for fucking sure.

This is a weird fucking town in ways he can't explain away. Not easily. Not in a way that doesn't give him even more baggage to deal with than he already has.

It's like this: He'd started to sober up real fast from the watered down keg beer. Someone had put a red cup full of spiked punch in his hand. He'd had three of them before things started going very wrong.

He remembers it as if he'd been in his body and out of it at the same time. It might have been his bones crawling out of him. He'd rather not speculate.

But he hadn't been the only one. And Harrington's words ring true now; they'd become their costumes. They'd rang true before as well, only Billy hadn't It's not funny, but a bout of hysterical laughter seems like the right reaction.

*

Hysterical laughter is the sort of reaction other people stare at you funny for. Because they don't know what's so fucking funny.

"We turned into our costumes," he says simply enough. Without being asked.

Wheeler attempts to shush him, but Billy's on a roll. His body quakes until peels and peels of laughter burst out of him. It's stupid to be this loud in the middle of the night with his father in the house. Neil's furious face pops into his head, the reaction he'd have if he were to walk into his bedroom in this exact moment, and that gets him going even harder. If it hadn't been hysterics before, it sure as fuck is now.

Sharply aware he's not dealing well with this shit, Billy decides he doesn't much care. Getting a beating from Neil is as likely to happen if he leaves a dirty cup out as it is if he gets caught with two boys and a girl in his bed in the middle of the night on a school night. It's just as likely if he sneezes on a quiet afternoon. Billy's approaching not caring about many things, it seems.

What snaps him out of it is someone's hand touching his face, tentatively and softly, and Billy believes for a moment it's Wheeler, is about to grab it and shove it off him, when Harrington's voice whispers an inch from his ear, "I _know_. But you've got to, uh, maybe calm down a little. Like, we get it. But." Stops. Puffs out a warm breath that tickles the fine hairs on the side of his face and neck and has warmth bursting all the way down Billy's face where what is now clearly Harrington's palm is holding him gently.

Billy catches his breath, makes a conscious effort to do so, enough to say, "What is this place?"

"Uh," Harrington starts.

"It's not so bad," Byers whispers on his left. Wheeler mumbles something in agreement Billy can't quite catch, but it doesn't really matter.

*

The worst happens, or as near it as Billy can imagine in the harsh light of day.

They fell asleep where they'd fallen onto his bed in the middle of the night. He realises this when the noises made by three teenagers scrambling to climb out of a window wake him in the early hours of the morning. The clock in his room says it's almost six, and there are definitely morning and breakfast sounds coming from downstairs. Any moment now Susan's going to burst through the door unannounced as she's been known to do despite his protests to attempt to wake him up or call him down to eat something before he's off to school.

Which means he should let Harrington, Byers and Wheeler make their escape, as quietly and swiftly as possible, before it genuinely becomes the worst, because if there's a chance something could go to Hell, Billy'll make sure it fucking does.

Instead, he jumps out of bed just as Harrington is about to start descending the ladder, the last one to do so.

"Wait," he whispers. His throat is sore and the sweetness of vodka and punch and whatever else has turned into a sourness that coats every word he tries to get out.

Startled, Harrington turns to him, big brown eyes shocked for an instant before he seemingly recognise Billy.

"We have to go," he whispers back. Nervously glances downwards.

"What the fuck happened last night?" Billy tries.

Harrington sighs. Absently stares over Billy's shoulder for a moment, just enough for panic to well up in Billy's throat. But it's not Neil or Susan or even Max; it isn't anybody.

"Hawkins is," Harrington states quite simply, "pretty weird."

"No shit," Billy mutters. Like anyone's arguing _that_. Who fucking _would_?

"Yeah." The ladder shakes where he's gripping it. "I have to go, but." Stop. Licks is lips in a way that's frankly too distracting for a regular morning, much less one where Billy's not sure what planet he's even on. "We can talk at school. Parking lot."

Then he starts to climb down. Billy doesn't try to stop him.

Later, after he's changed and showered and had a hearty mug of black coffee does Billy realise the keys to the Camaro are missing.

Fucker.

*

This is one weird fucking town, but he can't imagine that Billy killing the Byers kid would go unnoticed. Shame.

He's late for first period. Max skates herself to school, but not before giving him the finger. All told, he's not in a good mood. Billy in a bad mood generally means broken jaws and property damage.

To his surprise, not only is the Camaro in the school parking lot, but so are Harrington, Byers and Wheeler. The late bell must have rung ages ago, but they're all obviously waiting around for something, and that something seems to be Billy himself.

He lights up and walks over with the sort of calm he's known to flaunt before he starts wailing on someone. And, in a way, he _is_ calm. The part of him that hates this town and Neil and everything in his life is always raging, but it's been a confusing last twelve hours or so.

Doesn't mean he's not about to give anyone Hell.

"I could swear I was dreaming when I couldn't find my car keys this morning." He grins like a shark. As if it's funny. "I might be forgetful, but I'm not _that_ forgetful." A barrel of laughs.

It's Wheeler who throws them at his head, and he catches them more out of instinct than anything else.

"Calm down. We wanted to bring it to your house, but we were running late as it was." She doesn't even sound like she's sorry. Billy can't say he much likes it, but he gets the feeling that no one has the guts to call Wheeler out on this shit once she gets going, and he doesn't really blame them.

"Yeah, and your parents would've seen us," Harrington adds.

"No shit," Billy snaps.

"Listen," Wheeler says, "no one saw us this morning. We put the ladder back and everything. It would've been stupid to drive up to your house in your car." She makes with the big eyes as if she thinks Billy's gonna fall for that sort of thing.

He barks out a laugh before finishing his smoke and throwing the butt away. "Yeah? And whose fault was it you dipshits were there to begin with?"

"Hey! We were only helping you out. Jesus! What is your problem?"

"You're my problem, King Steve," and Billy can't leave it alone. He can't. He can't remember the last time he's been able to. He gets in Harrington's face, and thinks this is gonna be it, but Wheeler steps neatly between them before he can.

"Do you wanna know what the fuck is going on in Hawkins or not?" she asks. It sounds like a genuine question. A genuine offer.

"Humour me," he snarks. Still suspicious.

*

They tell him.

They tell him everything.

*

This is one weird fucking town.


End file.
